The Elm of Saint-Gervais

This elm is not particularly old. The address is: one has stood on this exact spot in front of the Saint-Gervais church since the Middle Ages, and for centuries it was where the neighbourhood settled its affairs. Debts were repaid under the elm on agreed days, judges heard disputes in its shade, and the phrase attendez-moi sous l'orme, wait for me under the elm, entered French as a way of saying you might be waiting a while. The medieval tree's successors appear in old engravings and even in the wrought iron balconies of the surrounding buildings, where the elm motif was worked into the metal in the 1730s. The Revolution felled the tree then standing, allegedly for cannon carriages. The current elm was planted in 1935, a young stand-in occupying one of the longest continuously treed spots in Europe. The building behind it has hosted a church since the 4th century.